The morning came with a brittle light, the kind that made the air shimmer yet carried no warmth.Kael woke before dawn, the echo of the old man's words still whispering behind his eyes — "The stone remembers what men forget."
He sat upright on the rough wooden cot, the chill of the ground pressing through the soles of his feet. His hands were still streaked with soot from the night before, when he had touched the obsidian fragment hidden beneath the altar. It pulsed faintly, even now, from within his satchel — as though it were a piece of midnight trapped inside glass.
He hadn't told anyone. Not even Neris.
The silence outside was deep, interrupted only by the distant call of desert ravens. The encampment still slept — tents scattered like half-forgotten dreams, canvas edges fluttering in the early wind. Beyond them stretched the endless scar of the old valley, where the ruins of Teth Arin slept beneath layers of sand.
Kael stepped out into the wind. It smelled of dust and rusted copper — the scent of the buried city itself.
He moved quietly toward the excavation pit, a black hollow carved into the desert floor. Down there, shadows seemed to breathe.
He remembered what the scholars said about this place: that it was once the heart of a kingdom older than any written tongue. But the locals had another name for it — The City That Listens.
When the wind was still, you could hear voices under the stone.
"Couldn't sleep again?"
Neris's voice came softly from behind him. She was already dressed in her pale expedition coat, her hair tied back, eyes half-shadowed with fatigue. Yet even in this light, there was a glimmer in her gaze — sharp, calculating.
Kael managed a small smile. "You know me too well."
"Too well to believe you came out here for fresh air," she replied. Her boots crunched on the gravel as she joined him by the edge of the pit. "You're still thinking about the altar, aren't you?"
He hesitated. The obsidian shard seemed to grow heavier in his satchel.
"It's just—" Kael began, then stopped. "There's something beneath it. Something alive in the stone. When I touched it, I heard—"
"Whispers?" Neris finished for him.
He looked at her, startled.
She smiled faintly. "You're not the first to hear them."
"What do you mean?"
"There's a reason the locals refuse to dig past the fifth layer," she said. "Every team that went deeper reported the same thing — voices, visions, shadows that moved when no light fell. They called it the memory below."
Kael frowned. "And you still brought us here."
"Curiosity is older than fear." Her smile thinned. "Besides, if the legends are true, what lies buried here could rewrite history."
He studied her face — calm, focused, but behind her eyes flickered something else. Not fear. Anticipation.
By midday, the camp had stirred to life. Pickaxes rang against stone, ropes creaked, and the dry laughter of the diggers scattered across the dunes. Kael helped lower a fresh crate of instruments into the pit, all while trying not to feel the pulse from his satchel.
But every time his hand brushed against it, he could hear faint murmurs — words without language, sorrow without sound.
When the sun stood at its zenith, the earth beneath their feet trembled.
It was faint, like a breath drawn from below. The workers froze. Dust drifted upward in thin spirals.
Then, as quickly as it came, it was gone.
Neris was the first to speak. "Mark the coordinates," she ordered briskly. "I want a full seismic log."
Kael crouched by the edge, peering into the dark below. The tremor had cracked open a new fissure along the northern wall — narrow, but deep. Within it, a faint glimmer caught the light.
He felt something stir in his chest. Recognition.
"Do you see that?" he whispered.
Neris nodded. "We'll open it tonight."
The night descended with a restless wind.Torches burned low as Kael and Neris descended into the pit together, leaving the others asleep above. The fissure had widened, a black mouth yawning open.
Inside, the air was cold — unnaturally so.
Their lamps flickered as though shivering. The walls glistened with ancient inscriptions, etched deep into basalt. Kael traced one with his fingertips — spirals of symbols that resembled eyes, repeating endlessly.
"They're not decorative," he murmured. "They're phonetic… but not human."
"Translate them later," Neris said. "For now, focus."
They squeezed through the opening. Beyond it lay a narrow chamber — a vault of stone untouched by sunlight for a thousand years.
At its center stood a single pillar. Upon it rested an object the size of a heart — a sphere of black crystal, smooth and pulsating faintly like something breathing.
Kael froze. His satchel pulsed in response.
He stepped closer, unable to stop himself. The shard in his bag trembled like a compass needle pointing home.
Neris whispered, "What is that?"
Kael reached out his hand — and the air around them shifted.
The torches dimmed. The ground shuddered. The sphere awakened.
A voice filled the chamber — not spoken, but felt. A thousand whispers overlapping, forming one thought:
"Return what was taken."
Kael staggered back, clutching his head. Visions tore through him — cities aflame, oceans turned black, towers collapsing beneath skies of fire. He saw the shard, the same obsidian fragment, buried again and again by trembling hands.
When the vision faded, he was kneeling, breath ragged. The sphere now glowed softly, its heartbeat syncing with his own.
Neris was pale, eyes wide. "Kael… what did you do?"
He looked down at his satchel. The shard was gone.
It had rejoined the sphere.
When they returned to the surface, dawn was breaking.
The camp was eerily quiet — too quiet.
Kael felt it before he saw it: a vibration beneath the ground, a hum that resonated through the bones. Every tool, every tent pole, every grain of sand seemed to tremble in harmony with that buried rhythm.
Neris gripped his arm. "The city's waking up," she said hoarsely.
Kael stared toward the horizon, where the first sunlight touched the dunes. For a moment, the desert shimmered not gold but black — as if a vast shadow were stirring beneath it.
And from deep below, a voice whispered again, faint but unmistakable:
"The stone remembers."